Witch Queen (38 page)

“Stop,” I breathed. I strained to reach her
feet. “Please.”

The queen’s magic pulsed through me. I felt
my insides burn and tasted blood in my mouth. I screamed as my body
twisted and broke apart, slowly, bone by bone.

The queen smiled. “Die, you little
whore—”

A boom of silver light suddenly exploded,
and the queen went sailing in the air and hit the ground hard. I
felt her magic leave me, and I pushed myself to my elbows.

“Elena!” Prince Aurion rushed to my
side.

“Can you walk?”

I spit the blood from my mouth, took a deep
breath, and tried to get up. I was immediately hit with a dizzy
spell, and I sank back down.

“I need a minute.”

Red and black spots danced before my
eyes.

“We don’t have a minute. We need to leave
now—”

The prince cried out as a filament of magic
wrapped around his body and lifted him off the ground.

“You traitor,” spat the witch queen as she
moved forward.

“Your magic is no match for mine,
princeling. Another mixed-blood bastard. Your mother was never fit
to be queen. An augur witch like her made a mockery of the king and
of our Dark Witches clan. And just like him, you are
not
fit
to be king either. I’ll remove you, too, just as I removed your
mother. And then I’ll remove the king.”

Aurion cried as the force of her magic
ripped through the darkness and expanded in the air with a sonic
boom. The prince was being torn apart. He was screaming and
writhing, trying to live. Blood spilled from his mouth, his eyes,
and his ears. She was killing him.

I struggled to my feet and hurled myself at
the queen. We rolled and fell on the grass. I felt her grunt, felt
her breath on my face. And then she was squeezing my neck. The
pulsing of her magic burned, and I choked on it. The witch queen
snarled as she poured all of her magic and malice into me. The
darkness around me deepened. I was going to die this time…

“Her magecraft,” I thought I heard a voice
say.

I blinked at the gleaming yellow pendant
that dangled below the crazed face of the witch queen, and I knew
what I had to do.

I gripped her pendant and yanked it off her
neck.

The queen cried out in a combination of
surprise and horror, and she let me go. I punched her in the face,
and she fell back.

I staggered to my feet in a daze, but I felt
a familiar warmth pulsing in my right hand. I stared at the
magecraft and realized that the power from the Queen’s magecraft
felt the same as the power I had felt when I had held the Heart of
Arcania. I heard it in my ears and felt it pounding in my own
chest. It was a fragment of the same kind of magic stone. Its power
was strong, but it was nothing compared to the larger stone.

How could this be? Where did the witches get
these stones?

Now I understood how the witches at the
trials had power over me, and why my healing powers weren’t
working.

The magecrafts were crafted with magic
stones, not jewels.

I frowned. Ada and the other witches had
told me that no man or witch could wield the power from magic
stones, and yet here they were—set like jewelry.

“Give that to me!” screeched the queen. Her
face was gaunt and hollow, as though a sudden sickness had taken
hold of her, as though the stone was draining her power away.

All my hatred, and my own feelings of
despair and betrayal, rose like a fire in my body.

The queen hurled herself at me, but I was
ready for her, and when she was close enough for me to smell the
rosewater on her neck, I pulled out my knife, thrust the blade
under her chin and pushed it up into her brain.

Her violet eyes blinked once, and then their
fiery light was extinguished.

Her body fell to the ground in a heap of
witch silk. The witch queen was dead, and I had killed her.

I felt a presence behind me, and I spun
around with my fists ready.

Prince Aurion raised his hands in surrender,
and I relaxed. If he hadn’t warned me about the magecraft, the
queen bitch would have killed us both. I pocketed the magic stone
before he could ask for it back. I needed to show it to the high
witch, Ada, and I needed to get some answers.

The prince examined the dead queen, but his
face was unreadable. Then he looked at me, and his silver eyes
gleamed in the moonlight like stars.

“We need to go,” said the prince. “Fawkes is
waiting for you by the stables.”

“Fawkes?”

“There’s no time,” urged the prince, “he’ll
explain. Quickly before the coven guards find you.”

The prince dashed through the courtyard.
Celeste stepped out from behind the tree where she had been hiding.
She looked shaken but still appeared to be determined to accompany
me. I snatched up my witch blade, grabbed her hand and pulled her
along with me as we followed the prince. We didn’t have to go far
to reach the stables.

I stumbled to a halt and stared wide eyed. A
group of about a hundred witches from the five witch clans were
mounted on their horses and ready to ride. And they weren’t coven
guards.

Fawkes rushed over to me. “Thank the
Goddess.”

He embraced me and practically broke my
ribs.

“Fawkes,” I looked around stunned. “Who are
these witches?”

I recognized two of the Coven Council
members who had been missing during the handfasting ritual, an old
female witch who could have been Ada’s great-grandmother, and a
male witch as old as the hills, but I had never seen any of the
others before.

“Your army.”

“My army? How?”

“Once I knew for sure that the king would
never agree to help us, I set about finding our own army. These
witches, all of them, are loyal to you.”

I was glad the darkness hid the blush on my
face.

“So that’s where you’ve been.”

Fawkes smiled weakly. “I was gathering as
many witches as possible.”

I scanned the witches quickly, not a single
witch had a magecraft on them.

“I don’t know what to say. Thank you,” I
said to these strangers, and they dipped their heads in reply.

“Where are Will and the others?”

“Safe,” said Fawkes. “You’ll be together
again soon enough.”

He moved towards the prince and shook his
hand.

“We owe you our lives, Prince Aurion. Thank
you for keeping her safe.”

The two men exchanged an embrace. I was
completely baffled. I looked to Celeste, and her face was just as
shocked as mine.

“Let’s ride,” said Fawkes. “We’ve got to
clear the capital and make for the mountain pass before the king
learns that you’ve escaped. Then we ride hard to Anglia and Gray
Havens.”

A witch brought Torak to me, and I nearly
fell to my knees sobbing. I wrapped my hands around Torak’s neck
and buried my face into his fur, breathing in his scent.

“Goddess I missed you, you big beast.”

Torak lowered his head and rested it on my
shoulder. And for a moment I forgot all about the black blight, the
priests, the queen, everything.

“Celeste is coming, too,” I said, as I
raised my head from Torak’s mane. “She’s something of a potions
master. She brewed a tonic that can cure black magic. We’re going
to need her skills to fight the darkness.”

Her cheeks flushed as all the other witches
looked to her with wonder, and I couldn’t help but notice that even
the two Coven Council witches smiled.

But there was still something that nagged
me. I let go of Torak and made my way to the prince. He was even
more radiant in the moonlight. His eyes were bright and keen, and
he looked fearless.

“Why are you helping me? Helping us?” I
asked, feeling a sudden tightness in my chest.

“Because, just like you, I believe we need
to stop the necromancers. I know the darkness is coming. I care
about my people. My father may not see the threat until it’s too
late, but I’ll remain here and try to convince him to help.”

He paused, and his skin darkened. “Although
that might prove a little more difficult after what happened…”

I stiffened at the memory. I couldn’t help
but feel that he had betrayed me even though he had been helping
Fawkes the whole time.

“Elena…we didn’t…” the prince began.

I met his gaze. “What did you say?”

There was a shift in the prince’s face. “We
didn’t do anything last night, apart from drinking.”

“But I was
naked
,” I said in a low
voice, so only he could hear. “And you were naked.”

He flashed a smiled. “Well, yes. I had to
remove your clothes for it to work, so that you would believe we
had made love…but we hadn’t.”

I shook my head. “Why would you do
that?”

“Because it was the only way to stop him.
Because it needed to be convincing, otherwise my father would have
seen through the bluff and would have forced the ceremony to
continue. And I knew it was the only way to keep him and the queen
off your back for a little while.”

“So it was all a lie.”

“To keep you safe, to keep you from my
father, and to give us enough time to prepare.”

“But you did see me completely naked,” I
teased a little breathlessly.

The prince smiled, but it seemed forced. And
then his eyes were suddenly moist and filled with tears.

He brushed a finger across my cheek.

“Goodbye, Elena,” he said softly.

Then he turned on his heel and walked back
to the main entrance of the fortress.

At first I didn’t understand the way the
prince had looked at me, or why he had tears in his eyes…

But then a lump formed in my throat, and I
turned away.

Once Celeste was seated on a spare horse, I
pulled myself onto Torak. All eyes were on me. The witches—my
magical army—waited for me to lead the way.

I grabbed the reins proudly, kicked my heels
into Torak’s flanks, and all one hundred of us rode off into the
night.

I’m coming, Jon. Please wait…I’m coming…

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Dear reader,

Thank you for reading
Witch Queen
. I
hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know the heroes and villains and the
world I’ve created for them. If you enjoyed this book, please visit
the site where you purchased it and write a brief review. Your
feedback is important to me and will help other readers decide
whether to read the book too.

Again, thank you for coming on this ride
with me, and I hope we’ll take many more together. The adventures
are just beginning. Happy reading!

Kim Richardson

BLOOD MAGIC COMING SOON!

MORE BOOKS BY KIM RICHARDSON

SOUL GUARDIANS SERIES

Marked Book # 1

Elemental Book # 2

Horizon Book # 3

Netherworld Book # 4

Seirs Book # 5

Mortal Book # 6

Reapers # 7

Seals Book # 8

MYSTICS SERIES

The Seventh Sense Book # 1

The Alpha Nation Book # 2

The Nexus Book # 3

DIVIDED REALMS

Steel Maiden Book # 1

Witch Queen Book # 2

Blood Magic Book # 3

ABOUT THE AUTHOR